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How Fixing Your Credit Can Fix Your Future

Bad credit. As the name suggests, it’s not a good thing. But you probably already know that. You might not realize; however, just how badly bad credit can impact your future. The flipside of that is, of course, that fixing your bad credit can be a big boost for your future!

While fixing bad credit isn’t always easy, it can be done. It’ll mean finding the money to pay your bills on time, diversifying your sources of credit, and possibly using a credit counselor. (For more on this, check out our previous credit counseling blog post.)

But instead of just focusing on the difficulties of fixing your bad credit, we spoke with The Experts to find out all the ways that a better credit score can lead to a better life. Just think of this as the vision board you can keep your eye on while you get that credit score to a better place.

Enable you to get a car or a house.

If you’re planning on getting a house or a car, you’re going to need a loan. Unless you’ve got tens of thousands of dollars of cash weighing down your pockets, in which case you should find a bank or a really large mattress to deposit those fat stacks.

“Think of a credit score as something that can make or break a chance to buy a house or car in the future,” leadership coach Elizabeth McCourt (@ecmccourt) told us. “A bad score can be prohibitive for financial independence. I’ve seen people struggle from mistakes with money via their credit score for years. The simple lesson is to pay your bills.”

Help you get a job.

One of the hardest parts of improving your credit score is overcoming the chain reactions that make bad credit scores worse. If you’re behind on your bills, your credit score will drop, which means you’ll have worse rates if you need a loan to pay those bills and… you can see where this is going. It can even keep you from getting a better job. Here’s what Jeff Altman (@TheBigGameHuntr), life coach and “big game hunter” told us:

“One of the saddest things I have had to do is to tell someone who put in so much time and effort trying to get a job that they were rejected based upon their credit score. It happened frequently during ‘The Great Recession’ and has happened to people I coach even now.

“A person has to pay attention to their personal financials as well as their professional skills in order to avoid the horrors of finding out that the offer you were hoping for was rescinded because of a poor credit score or reference check.”

Of course, you can also flip this around and try to see it from the positive light. Fixing your credit can help you get a better job, and that job could get you more money to pay your bills on time, which will improve your credit further, and now you’re not stuck in a downward spiral anymore. You’re stuck in an upward spiral!

We believe in you.

We’re trying to give everything with a positive spin since we think it’s easier to accomplish something when you’ve got good things to look forward to, rather than just bad things you’re trying to avoid.

Before you go off and fix your credit, we’ll leave you with these words from financial literacy educator Doris Belland (@DBelland):

“In the past ten years, I have seen countless people pretty much give up after getting into financial trouble that affected their credit report. The general population knows very little about credit scores, including how to repair them. Perhaps they try to get on track for a bit, but when their efforts don’t yield quick results they give up and persist in behaviors that harm their credit.

“We’ve been able to turn people around by educating them about small actions that make a big difference, including paying all bills on time, all the time. We’ve also helped them to understand that credit repair doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. The good news is that all credit issues can be repaired given the right, consistent actions and enough time.”

Belland recently published a book designed for women who want to get their financial life in order called Protect Your Purse, so give that a look.

As Belland said, it may take a while to get your credit in a good place, but just keep thinking about all the benefits, and we know you’ll be able to make it happen!

Elizabeth McCourt,(@ecmccourt) JD, MFA, CPCC, ACC is the President of McCourt Leadership Group. She has been a financial services recruiter for 17 years and is also an executive coach, certified by the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), in addition to certifications in the Hogan Leadership Assessment and in Systemic Team Coaching. Prior, she was a trial lawyer in New Mexico with a JD from Loyola University and an undergraduate degree in Finance from the University of Maryland.

In AK, AZ, FL, IN, KY, MI, and OK, all installment loans are originated by FinWise Bank, a Utah chartered bank, located in Sandy, Utah, member FDIC.

CA residents: Opportunity Financial, LLC is licensed by the Commissioner of Business Oversight (California Financing Law License No. 603 K647).

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